A Ulauncher extension for finding files and directories by name. It uses fd for instant real-time search with no index to maintain, and optional fuzzy matching through fzf.
Part of the No Faff suite.
Type a keyword, a space, then your query:
f: files and directoriesff: files onlyfd: directories onlyfz: fuzzy match, files and directories
So ff budget finds files with "budget" in the name, and fd trek finds directories to do with Star Trek.
A single word matches against the filename. Type more than one word and it narrows: every word has to appear somewhere in the path, in any order. ff budget wedding keeps only the wedding budgets, and in honeymoon-budget.numbers the word "budget" matches the filename while "wedding" matches its parent folder. Words match literally, so ., ? and * are treated as themselves rather than as wildcards.
Results from f, ff and fd are ordered by relevance, so a file whose name contains more of your words ranks above one that only matches through a parent folder. fz uses fzf's own fuzzy ranking instead.
fd searches directories only:
f searches files and folders together:
fz matches fuzzily, so fz invc finds the invoices ranked by quality:
# Fedora
sudo dnf install fd-find fzf
# Debian and Ubuntu (fd ships as fdfind)
sudo apt install fd-find fzfOpen Ulauncher, go to Extensions, click Add extension and paste:
https://github.com/no-faff/ulauncher-find
Use the arrow keys to pick a result, then Enter to open it. Alt+Enter, or a right-click, shows its action menu: Open, plus a second action you choose in the preferences. The second action opens the containing folder, opens a terminal there, or copies the path to the clipboard. Pick an item from the menu with the arrow keys and Enter.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Keywords | The trigger word for each mode | f, ff, fd, fz |
| Alt+Enter action | Open the containing folder, open a terminal there, or copy the path | Open containing folder |
| Base directory | Where to search from. Comma-separate several, e.g. ~,/data. / searches everywhere but walks /proc, /sys, /usr and every mount, so it is slow |
~ |
| Result limit | How many results to show | 15 |
| Search time limit | Seconds to keep searching before showing results, for a search that finds fewer than the result limit. Lower is snappier, higher catches more across large drives or separate partitions | 5 |
| Include hidden files | Search dotfiles and dot-directories | No |
| Follow symbolic links | Follow symlinked directories | No |
| Ignore file | Path to a .gitignore-style file of paths to skip | (blank) |
| Terminal command | Terminal for "open in terminal". Blank auto-detects. For an unsupported one, give a full command with {} as the directory, e.g. myterm --cd {} |
(blank) |
There is no index, so each search walks the directories live. That is effectively instant somewhere small like your home folder, but a separate partition or a mounted drive is slower to walk, especially the first time before the filesystem cache is warm.
A search that matches only a few files is slower than one that matches lots, because fd cannot know there are no more matches until it has walked everything. The search time limit handles that: it shows what it found once the limit is up. So point the base directory at where your files actually live rather than at /, and if a file you know exists does not show on a cold drive, raise the limit.
MIT, see LICENCE.